#but i feel the need to emphatically make clear how dangerous russia and their allies are

[still-searching-for-something]

Russia is coordinating a massive, sustained and multinational effort to bring some of the world's foulest autocracies and terrorist organizations together in the aim of extinguishing a liberal democratic state in Europe.

Houthi terrorists, North Korean troops, Belarusian staging grounds, Chinese funds, Russian troops, and Iranian weapons are all unified in this genocidal assault on Ukraine's sovereignty and the very existence and identity of the Ukrainian people. These are regimes which perpetrate unspeakable human rights abuses against their peoples every day, and now they are seeking to expand their odious apparatus of control and oppression onto a democratic state.

How much more proof do we need that this Axis of Autocracies represent a global threat to liberal democratic states? Every year that passes, they more closely coordinate their economic, military, and diplomatic efforts toward expansionism, state terrorism, and imperialism. The spread of far-right and far-left disinformation is traced to Russian and Chinese botnets and troll farms, fomenting political polarization and disunity at a time when we need unity and decisiveness the most.

Understand, the war against Ukraine is not just a war against Ukraine--it is the first round in the war against democracy. It is the fight of all of the free world, of all liberty-loving people everywhere, and we must win. To this end, political leaders in Europe need to step up where America is stepping down and increase their wartime readiness--boost military spending, reintroduce the national service, send military aid hand over fist to Ukraine, and work to counter Axis influence within their own borders.